Early on Thursday, national-security professionals across Washington, D.C., awoke to news that Russian President Vladimir Putin was claiming to have created an air-defense-beating, “invincible” hypersonic missile — though offering no particular proof. New DARPA director Steven Walker declined to comment on Putin’s assertion but told defense reporters that his teams are working as they can to test a hypersonic missile before 2020 — and that they need more help.

“Most of our programs at DARPA [related to hypersonic research] are testing at one facility,” Walker said: NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia, where research and testing is happening around the clock.

He says he needs more testing infrastructure.

“If you look at some of our peer competitors, China being one, the number of facilities that they’ve built to do hypersonics… surpasses the number we have in this country. It’s quickly surpassing it by 2 or 3 times. It is very clear that China has made this one of their national priorities. We need to do the same,” he said.

DARPA and the U.S. Air Force are working on two hypersonic weapon concepts. One is the Tactical Boost Glide weapon. A rocket accelerates the craft to very high speeds and altitudes, then glides back to earth. The other is the hypersonic air-breathing weapon concept, or HAWC, whose scramjet engine takes in air at supersonic speeds, compresses it, and pushes it through a nozzle out the back.

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And, of course, the government needs zigableems more tax dollars to fund this, and they will do it by cutting Medicare, coverage on desperately needed prescription drugs for older Americans, and payouts to doctors who actually deign to TREAT people on Medicare.